36 year old male here, getting ready for a laparoscopic nissen fundoplication. I have NEVER had a surgical procedure done before and in this case I have run out of options.
It all started in 2012 when I had a late meal and felt the weirdest feeling in my chest, uncomfortable pain I had never felt before, soon I began feeling nauseated and spent the entire night vomiting and leaning in the toilet. I kept on having the regurgitation reflex even though there was nothing in my stomach. I was taking to the Dr the next morning and he put me on drip as I had lost a lot of water. He diagnosed me with a gastric ulcer and gave me several medications which seemed to subside the symptoms.
I went through several years thinking I had a peptic ulcer and kept getting hospitalized several times and receiving drips due to the same crazy nauseated feeling in my chest, but the condition always surprised me because no matter how much I went out of my way to follow the Dr's orders and stay away from ulcer elevating foods and always tried to eat on time and regularly, this attack seemed to happen randomly. After about three years it finally stopped and I thought I had healed from the ulcer.
Then my teeth started to decay, I smoked at the time so I just thought it was my smoking habit that was weighing in on my teeth so I quit but the teeth problems kept on getting worse and I couldn't figure out what was going on. Then I started getting these weird panic attacks that would give me these crazy heart palpitations which sometimes made me feel like I was going to pass out. Then the dysphasia started, food literally getting stuck in my throat after eating, I was rushed to the hospital on countless occasions, had an x ray done twice but they couldn't find anything. It was at this point I decided to see an ENT dr who put a camera down my nose and diagnosed me with acid reflux. She gave me medicine and lifestyle tips but this didn't seem to help, the palpitations persisted and began turning into this crazy pain in my chest where my heart is,I began developing some what of an asthma.
Was rushed to the hospital after the first attack in fear it might be a heart attack, saw a cardiologist who did several tests on me including putting a hotem thingy to measure my heart beat and an EKG and said my heart was fine. He then referred me to a gastroenterologist who did an endoscopy and diagnosed me with a hiatal hernia. It was small he said, and after giving me meds which didn't work, he recommended a laparoscopic nissen fundoplication. I found diets online which helped stop the hyperacidity that caused my palpitations but the reflux didn't stop, sometimes I reflux twice a day even when I stick to an alkaline diet, I have lost a tremendous amount of weight and for months now I always have this tightness in my throat that hardly goes away. I have tried everything from omerprazole and nexium, but nothing seems to help. I can go through two bottles of Gaviscon in a week and finally he recommended the procedure. I'm going for the clinical investigations on Monday for the procedure and frankly I'm terrified, I have heard stories of people dying from anesthetic reactions and surgery complications. I know I have no choice but to have the procedure because of my situation but this is a whole new ballgame and it's scary.
Just wanted to know if I am overreacting here, and what I can expect. I'm not actually scared of the procedure itself and the recovery, I'm willing to tough it out if it means getting better, my main concern is the complications which may arise during surgery.
As I write this I have the worst sore throat I have ever had and my diaphragm is gurgling like crazy.
Written by
Shehisa
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Your teeth problem is more than likely due to the reflux. Stomach acid is amazingly strong so when it meets the enamel of the teeth it begins to dissolve it little by little. Something that will help with this is to neutralise the acid in your mouth by chewing gum immediately the reflux begins. This will stimulate the flow of saliva in your mouth and that will neutralise the acid. Keep some gum with you all the time. Using a lot of artificially sweetened gum can cause a laxative effect though. If you're at home then a mouth full of milk held in the mouth for a little while will also help neutralise the acid, as will a little cube of cheese. A mouthwash of water is better than nothing but not as good as the other suggestions.
As for the laparoscopic procedure, all I can say is that I had a doible inguinal hernia fixed with mesh three years ago and although initially it felt like the furniture down there had been moved around for a while, I was back at work eight days later and have had zero side effects since. So good luck with that.
I had a long period similar to yours (years!!). I was diagnosed with esophageal reflux and ernia iatalis. Surgery was presented to me as the last option. I found a very good gastroenterologist who made me undergone a one-day-long pH-metry and other examinations.
I was put on a heavy therapy: 20 mg omeprazole in the morning + 20 mg omeprazole in the evening (it is VERY important that you take omeprazole 30' before eating!!); levosulpiride 20-15' before the two main meals (again: the time is VERY important); ranitidine before going to bed. Many doctors told me it was too much, or even "stupid". But my gastroenterologist persisted in her idea. I followed her indications and I slowly got better and better (I took me some months to start reducing the therapy). After years, I'm now only with 20 mg omeprazole when I wake up, but sometimes I need to come back to more aggressive therapy (for example when I go on holiday and I cannot control my diet as at home, I add at least levosulpiride before dinner). There are types of food you have to avoid: more classically tomatoes, oranges, onions, chocolate, coffe, mint etc. But you have also to realize yourself what food is good and what is bad for you by experience. NO alcohol, NO smoke (YES sex!!). If you are even only a little overweight and you have "a belly", you should try to reduce your weight: abdominal fat worsens the symptoms.
So, my experience is that you could manage to get out of your situation even without surgery: with diet, exercise and drugs. Moreover, I know that sometimes surgery does not sort out the problem. I do not want to put you in doubt. I just wanted you to know my experience.
You should also be checked if you have a helicobacter pylori infection. If so, you can eradicate the inflection with a specific antibiotic treatment. Someone recover completely from their symptoms by this antibiotic treatment IF they had helicobacter.
Good luck, it is a long journey to free oneself from the gastroesophageal reflux, but you can manage to find a way out!
If you need more advice, just contact me again on this site.
My gastroenterologist is Prof Patrizia Zentilin of the University of Genoa. You can find her email on the site of the University.
She's a very beautiful woman, very smart and very clever. I think you could contact her and tell her that I have advised you to contact her. My name is Nicola Traverso. In the meantime, I will tell her that I gave you her address.
One-day-pHmetry and manometry are very important even during therapy, in order to see if your therapy is sufficient to reduce to pH of your gastric secretion all day long. For example, we discovered that I needed an extra anti-acidic drug for the night, and Prof Zentilin decided to add ranitidine. That was very, very useful. Sometimes adjusting therapy with the add of instrumental metodology such as pHmetry is fundamental to individulized your therapy.
My life pretty much stopped 2 years ago this month. It started with symptoms of shortness of breath, palpitations & severe GERD out of nowhere following a course of amoxicillin for a sinus infection. This may or may not be a coincidence, I don't know. I went from being a super active, health conscience, happy person to being completely disabled and unable to work virtually, overnight. No one knew what was wrong and I got passed around to the wrong specialists and misdiagnosed to no end.
A few months into this, I had an endoscopy. In it, was revealed that I had gastritis and a peptic ulcer. I tested negative for h pylori. That GI specialist failed to acknowledge any connection between my sudden breathing issues, stomach pain and the endoscope findings. In hindsight, this assessment is astoundingly ignorant for a gastro specialist.
Anyway, every day I wake up I wish i hadn't. Dietary changes don't seem to make much of a difference.
My symptoms are constant 24/7: burning in stomach, acid reflux, regurgitation, bouts of severe weakness/dizziness, constant shortness of breath, back pain adjacent to the stomach.
In all my research, most peptic ulcers & severe gastritis are a result of h pylori and in mnay cases. My father suffered from h pylori several years back. He did triple therapy and was cured with medicines like justdoc.com/medicine/caripi... caripill . My current GI doc insists that I don't have h pylori, but i'm not so sure. 88% of all peptic ulcers are from h pylori.
What do you guys think? Has anybody on here been disabled from working because of this? Anyone here ever have this array of symptoms? I'm open to ANY thoughts, suggestions, referrals or advice on this debacle.
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